Henry Samueli, chairman and research chief at Broadcom Corp., recently talked up potential moves with Apple Computer Inc. and San Diego’s Qualcomm Inc.
The comments came in a question and answer story with Red Herring magazine in April.
The first question: Will Broadcom get its wireless chips in the next Apple gadget? (Broadcom’s chips already are in the new video iPod.)
Samueli: “We have demonstrated the technology, and they know its capability. The tech hurdle is over. It’s a matter of them deciding whether they want to integrate it, and it’s something they should comment on.”
On Qualcomm: Are legal battles between Broadcom and Qualcomm affecting research and development?
Samueli: “Our product development plans are moving along just fine. I am hopeful that the market will not be slowed down by these lawsuits. The intent is to expand the market to create a level playing field for all the players.”
Lastly, we learned Samueli’s choice for portable handheld devices:
“PalmOne’s Treo 650. It has Broadcom’s baseband chip and GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as Broadcom’s Bluetooth chip. I’ve been using it ever since it came out.”
Powerwave Power Play
Santa Ana-based Powerwave Tech-
nologies Inc. had a busy first week of May, to say the least.
On May 2, the maker of amplifiers and other gear for wireless phone networks reported lower-than-expected sales. But it also said sales in the current quarter should rise by 30% to $250 million, based on orders picking up.
Analysts were expecting $249 million in revenue for the current quarter.
Powerwave said it expects profits to come in at $12.3 million to $15.6 million for the current quarter. Analysts were expecting $16.7 million.
Wall Street didn’t mind the lower outlook for profits. A few analysts responded well, including one from Deutsche Securities who upgraded Powerwave from “hold” to “buy.”
The company’s shares closed up 11% on the news.
Two days later, Powerwave said it’s in talks to buy a wireless gear division from Britain’s Filtronic PLC.
Powerwave said it is in “exclusive negotiations” to buy Filtronic’s transit receiver modules and amplifiers.
One analyst valued the businesses at $275 million to $425 million, according to Reuters.
Filtronic is a smaller rival to Powerwave, which has expanded its market share through acquisitions in the past few years.
It now has more than an estimated 60% of the market share for antennas, boosters, combiners, filters, radio frequency power amplifiers, repeaters, tower-mounted amplifiers and other gear.
Remote Growth
Universal Electronics Inc.’s stock has done little of interest of late. But that might be changing.
The Cypress company,a designer of remote controls for consumer electronics,saw its stock finally break the $20 barrier early this month with a 15% surge, something it hasn’t managed to do in nearly five years.
For the past year and a half, Universal’s stock has bounced around $16 and $18, with seemingly little moving the stock either way. The company counted a recent market value of about $254 million.
Why the recent climb? The company said on May 4 it had reached $2 million in earnings during the first quarter, up 15% from a year earlier. Excluding options (as the year-ago figures do) earnings rose 46%.
More to Wall Street’s liking, Universal beat profit estimates of $1.78 million for the quarter.
Sales shot up more than 30% to $54.2 million from a year earlier.
The company’s numbers prompted Scot Ciccarelli, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets Corp. in New York, to raise his price target for the company from $18 to $21, though he kept his rating at “sector perform.”
Systems Upgrade
Silicon Systems says it’s growing.
The Aliso Viejo-based company, which makes high-end flash storage devices for industrial use, doesn’t disclose revenue. But it said it saw triple-digit percentage revenue growth last year.
Michael Hajeck, who started the company back in 2004, said demand is growing for the company’s storage products.
“It was from millions of dollars to tens of millions of dollars,” Hajeck said. “We are growing very quickly because there is market need out of there.”
Some of its newest customers include Paris-based Alacatel, Motorola Inc. and General Dynamics Corp.
The company has had two rounds of funding, though it hasn’t given hard numbers on money raised.
Silicon Systems makes what are called solid-state storage products.
Silicon Systems’ devices are full of flash memory chips and do not use a disk drive.
The key product for Silicon Systems is its controller,a circuit board with chips. It lets the flash memory easily connect to a computer by appearing as a traditional disk drive.
The devices are designed to store small amounts of data, sometimes in hot, cold, dusty or otherwise tough settings.
In the past 18 months, Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. have exited the industrial flash market, leaving more room for Silicon Systems.
But there’s still competition. Israel’s M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. recently said it’s moving into Silicon Systems’ market.
Silicon Systems is profitable with expectations of more growth, according to Hajeck.
The company is looking to move to a new headquarters with about 40,000 square feet by early next year, Hajeck said. That would double its space.
Also, the company is set to announce an office in England to go after European customers.
